Remember mixtapes?
I had to take a little road trip today, and had to use a fleet vehicle that is (a) rather old, hence (b) doesn’t have a cd player. Fortunately for me, it did have a tape player. Yes kiddos, a cassette tape player. So, I grabbed a handful of old mixtapes I haven’t played in forever out of my closet, so I’d have something to listen to on the road. See, one thing about the midwest—-the radio sucks. SUCKS! I’m tellin’ ya! Sure, you can find a good college or community radio station every now and then, but the range isn’t very far. That’s where mixtapes come in.
When I was a teenager, I used to listen to a Champaign-Urbana station on Sunday nights to get my weekly R&B fix. That, and I’d trade tapes/records with other folks at school. We’re goin’ back….waaaayyyy back. Troglodyte era. And there were record stores. That’s what we called ‘em, record stores. It was always guys behind the counter. Serious music fiends. Knew their shit, too. Just like High Fidelity. I was the weirdo girl who into it just as much as they were (I never could get hired anywhere tho’, even though I knew my shit, too). There were college stations I listened to out of Champaign, Terre Haute….sometimes I could get a station out of Chicago when the atmosphere was just right and it was late at night. Always had eclectic taste. Punk, funk, rock, old-school soul, blues, it was all good to me. Still is.
Anyway, one of the tapes I picked up out of that bin in the closet—I looked at the date on the inside label (I used to date my tapes). April 24, 1984. Wow. None of that music has aged either…not in my ears, anyway. Still good. Wanna listen?
This is John Doe and the Sadies playing “The Have-Nots”. The version on my mixtape is by X. This version isn’t as good, frankly. Too much twang, no Billy Zoom on the guitar, and most of all no Exene Cervenka on vocals. The interplay between her and John’s voice is what made a lot of X’s songs. I used to jam the hell out of this in my bedroom, which was across the hall from the bathroom. When my dad finally figured out the lyrics, he’d sing along and bounce while he was shaving. Didn’t make me think the song was any less cool, though.
The incomparable Patti Smith.
Romeo Void – Never Say Never. I’ve got the extended version on my mixtape. I was a sucker for extended versions.
The Isley Brothers – Who’s That Lady.
Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul – Under the Gun (live version). Not the same live version I have on the tape, but it’ll do. Silvio can jam, huh?
It’s a 90-minute tape. When I showed my daughter the date on it, her eyes bugged. She can’t believe a relic like that is still around. She can’t believe that I used to be the remote control, either (hey kid! get up and change the channel, willya?). She really can’t believe in life before Internet. Me, I can’t believe the tape still plays after all these years. And if you’d'a told me that Steven Van Zandt was going to be Silvio Dante on The Sopranos, I’d'a laughed my ass off. But here we are.
That’s Why I’m Cryin’: R.I.P. Koko Taylor
We lost a giant the other day. The Queen of the Blues died from complications related to surgery on June 3, 2009 at the age of 80.
Koko Taylor was born on September 28,1928 on a sharecropper’s farm outside of Memphis, TN. Her mother died when she was four, and along with her brothers and sisters she grew up helping her father on the farm—until he died also, when she was eleven. She had an early love for music and sang gospel in the local Baptist church; at home, her brothers and sisters made rudimentary instruments and “played” along with the radio. In 1952, she moved to Chicago with her fiance, Robert “Pops” Taylor; they married in 1953. They both had day jobs—Koko cleaning houses on the North Shore while Pops worked in a slaughterhouse—but at night, they’d go to the Chicago juke joints and sit in with the musicians. Koko became a favorite of the audience for her rough, low growl that invoked Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Big Mama Thornton.
In 1962, she met Willie Dixon and started recording with him; he helped her get a contract with Chess Records, where she had her first hit with Dixon’s “Wang Dang Doodle”. Dixon encouraged her to write her own music, so she penned her first song, “What Kind of a Man is This?” about her husband, friend, promoter and producer, Pops Taylor. After Chess Records folded, she signed with Alligator Records, and was there ever since. In 1989, a serious car accident injured Koko and several members of her band, including her husband Pops, who later died from injuries sustained in that accident. During the 1990′s she made appearances in the films “Wild at Heart” by David Lynch, “Mercury Rising” and “Blues Brothers 2000″.
Always one of the busiest performers on the blues circuit, she performed an average of 200 shows per year up until 2003, when she had a heart attack and slipped into what became a 28-day coma. She had to relearn how to walk, and returned to the stage in the spring of 2004 for a more moderate average of 100 shows a year. She has been nominated for eight Grammys and has won numerous awards from the blues community, including 25 W. C. Handy Awards (more than any other performer). In 1997, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and in 1999 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Blues Foundation. In 2004, she made a cameo appearance on the PBS children’s television show, “Arthur” along with Taj Mahal. (“Mama!! C’mere!!!! It’s the lady who sings ‘Don’t Mess with Mother Nature’!!!!”)
She co-hosted the radio program “Blues You Can Use” that aired Thursday nights from 7-10PM on Gary, Indiana’s WGVE 88.7. Still a touring musician, her last performance was at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis, May 7, 2009. Koko Taylor was an inspiration to other musicians in the blues world; Susan Tedeschi, Shemekia Copeland, Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin all counted her as a strong influence. From a 1994 interview, Koko says about her music, “In other words, my career, my singin’, a lot of people ask me, “What is the blues? What does your music mean to you?” To me, my music is like a therapy. My music is healin’, you know? It’s healin’, it’s therapy, it’s encouragement. I try to sing the type of songs that make people happy. I try to sing a song that’s gonna touch somebody, to make them look up, pep up, feel good about themselves, encourage them–have a lyric that will encourage them in some way…”
And that’s one of the best explanations I’ve heard on what the blues is and why it’s still around—the frank admission of pain and cartharsis; speaking recovery into being.
“Don’t mess with Mother Nature……you’ll be sorry if you do….’cuz I’ll rain on your parade, and I’ll storm all over you!”
R.I.P. and God bless, Koko, for sharing your gift with us.
For more on Koko Taylor:
Sunshine Cleaning
Through Feministe, I found a really cool website featuring the undersung sheroes of the film industry, Women and Hollywood; author Melissa Silverstein pumps the hell out of woman-centric films (preferably, those written and/or directed by women). There’s such a dearth of good films by and for women, that I find myself going to this website often to get tips on what to see. If we want our stories told, we need to support the people doing the telling when we can. As my daughter gets older, she is expanding her taste in film beyond cartoons and films based on comic books. Film is an interest we share together, and she is always interested in films about women….I think it’s a way of exploring how she wants to be when she grows up. That, and she’s had a keen sense of women being shortchanged for years. She used to point out the lack of female characters in storybooks in preschool, drew pictures of animals (and pity the fool that said, “what’s his name?” or “what’s he doing?”), and marched through the Body Worlds exhibit at the St. Louis Science Center last year intrigued with the bodies but disgusted at the lack of female presence (“there are only four females in this whole show! Just four!”). Heh, no…I didn’t drill her into doing that……she did it on her own, practically from the moment she could speak. She’s nine now, and growing up fast. She’s always had a handle on the various ways women and our contributions are diminished, but she’s reaching an age where she’s impressed with the ways in which we challenge and change those misconceptions and misrepresentations. I make a point of showing her art (in all its forms) by women to give her models for creating and imagining……resistance, truth, beauty, evolution, revolution…..models I didn’t have at her age. She will be one of many making this world a better place.
A couple of weeks ago, we went to see the film Sunshine Cleaning written by Megan Holley and directed by Christine Jeffs. It’s the story of Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams), a struggling single mother whose glory days as the high school cheerleading captain dating the quarterback are long gone; she now spends her hardscrabble days working as a maid and trying to make the ends meet. Besides raising her bright, too-imaginative-for-school eight year old, Oscar (Jason Spevack), she also feels responsible for her younger sister Norah (Emily Blunt), a perpetual slacker who still lives with their eccentric dad, Joe (Alan Arkin).
Rose has been the adult in that family ever since the death of their mother. While her salesman/hustler father never met a get-rich-quick idea he didn’t like (or want to try), Rose kept it all together, spending her life seeking normalcy—a convention that has always eluded her. She practices affirmations in the mirror to jump start her psyche in the morning; verbal coffee for the day ahead.
Her only escape is the evenings at the motel with her married, cop boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zahn)—the quarterback who didn’t pick her for his team. After Rose complains about the need to get her son into a different school, one that won’t label his nonconformity as disability, Mac turns her on to the idea of starting a crime-scene cleanup business. “You wouldn’t believe how much money they make!” So, with no training, no knowledge, no start-up money, no contacts (save for Mac, who lets her know where the latest atrocity occurred and who to speak to about getting the job)—Rose jumps in with both feet, dragging her reluctant younger sister along for the ride (“do you want to live with Dad forever?”).
It’s…..messy. Like life itself. Rose finds her guardian angel in the form of Winston (Clifton Collins, Jr.), the owner/propietor of the cleaning supply house she frequents; Winston lends her his study manuals for the certification exam (that she didn’t know she needed!) and doesn’t report her for the egregious code violations that the upstart “Sunshine Cleaning” has already committed. It’s tough. But so is Rose. And so too are Norah, and even Joe.
As Rose and Norah clean up the final tragedies of the lives of others, they learn how to clean up the unfinished business in their own; burying what is finished in the past, and moving toward the light in their futures. “Sunshine Cleaning” isn’t just about smoothing over the surface, spit-and-polish to cover up after the casualties—it’s about how people themselves are assigned stations as the detritus of this life, and how those who are still living don’t have to accept it. This is a film about—and for—survivors.
In Lubu’s Den, me & the cub give it two thumbs up* for realism, recognizable characters, inventive scriptwriting, and a stellar cast that didn’t sleep in. The shots of Albuquerque gave just the right touch. This was Megan Holley’s first script (entered in a scriptwriting contest!). For more on Sunshine Cleaning:
*head nod to fellow Illinoisan Roger Ebert!
Pacing & Howling
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Changing Moods
